Lighting networks may be organized into groups of lighting nodes with repeaters used to enable control signals from a central controller to reach out-of-range lighting nodes or groups of lighting nodes. In theory, selecting lighting nodes to be repeaters should be done after all of the nodes are installed, the central controller is installed, and lighting nodes in range of the central controller are commissioned. However, in practice, the above almost never happens in the installation of lighting networks, with the result that there are too many repeaters turned on as a byproduct of installation activities. For example, installers will install a node or nodes around a campus, and then from the central controller, manually turn on repeaters the installer believes might help until one is found that allows communication with some or all of the recently installed nodes, to attempt to commission them. This is an expensive labor intensive and time consuming process. For various reasons (including being pressed for time) installers typically leave nodes in repeater mode, even if that repeater does not help in communication with the newly installed nodes. This creates an obvious excess of repeaters that create unnecessary message flows, increase resource usage and drive overall contention on the system.
What is needed is a better way to select repeaters during installation of nodes in a lighting network; more efficiently and automatically as part of a more cost-effective process for organizing and controlling modern networked lighting.